Ethanol is all well and good, but your milage is not as good as gas, plus it cost more. This makes having hybrids even more sense.

Its not about mileage or cleanliness. Its about independence from foreign oil.

How about this kooky approach…make cars smaller and lighter like they were 20 years ago, and don’t get into a horsepower race with other manufacturers, instead put in a good small 4 cylinder with modern technologies like direct injection, and make 100% gasoline cars that get 40 mpg. At least until hydrogen becomes a viable option.

Coming soon: ethonol powered hybrids

ok jeff, lets make our cars suck again, thanks for the input

I agree with Derek.

Hybrids are fashonable, superfluous machines that only prolong our dependancy on foreign oil.

Jeff’s point is well taken, too.

Wake up America!

TW – Ethanol does not cost more than gas. My family in Minnesota said this past year when gas was $3, Ethanol wa $1.40. Corn prices do not change that much so only 15% of the price can fluxuate with gas prices.

Ka’moooooon with this blather about corn. . Hell, it takes 1/4-1/3 a gallon of oil or natural gas just to make the FERTILIZER for a bushel of corn. No farmer has an E85 tractor and it takes tons of refined fuels to ship and reprocess the stuff. This Bull Sh_t about it being ‘Good for America’ is just more propaganda from the Pols, Cargill and people in Iowa on the handout train.

…and RE: it’s not that I don’t believe your Dad, but can you imagine the line at the 670 E85 pumps in the country if this fuel was 1/2 the price of normal gas?! As it is, there’s about 20,000 able vehicles for each station – at 1/2 the price? Somehow…

Hell, just dump all your dumb dreams of 500hp Solstice and 10-cyl pick up trucks. Get real about living 50mi from work as a single commuter with no public trans. In other words, get ready for a shakeout.

j i m

jim… if you havent noticed…
not depending so heavily on foreign oil = good for america.
and corn grows back.
those are the only reasons for E85 making sense as a fuel source.

and akh-med… it says right in the article… Ford Escape Hybrid E85. so of course theyre coming.

RE, you’re almost right… except the Bush Administration (which is far from perfect but was right on this one) tries to give tax incentives to oil companies that would’ve made it cheaper for ethanol companies to buy the additives needed for the fuel.

When Teddy Kennedy and the other idiots realized that the oil companies were getting a tax break, they stopped. The Republicans in Congress (not much smarter than the Democrats) agreed. The result? Ethanol companies have to buy the same additives as oil companies because the other additives (which only work with oil, not ethanol, did not get the incentive that would’ve made them cheaper) so ethanol now costs almost as much as gas (even though it’s taxed less and heavily subsidized on the production side).

Now that Toyota has decided on E85 all the bias media will hail them as forwarding thinking. LOL!!! How come it took Toyota up to know to come up with parts that won’t corrode when back in 1998 Chrysler minivans could run on E85? Yeah Toyota, forward thinking.

nice bashing nick, perhaps toyota will send you an apology for trying to make money. they mass produced hybrids (GM came up with it first) and theyre going to do the same damn thing with E85…and ive seen better looking toyotas that are 20 years old than a 98′ chrysler minivan…

E85 is a renewable resource, oil isn’t. It produces fewer greenhouse emissions. E85 _is_ cheaper than regular unleaded, right now down the street from my house it is 39 cents-per-gallon less. Vehicles with the E85 engine get 25-25% less economy than with regular unleaded. However, I’d rather use a renewable resource produced in the USA than foreign oil. C’mon, be realistice, the only one getting rich are the commodity traders and oil companies (400 million retirement bonus, sic). Toyota is smart, why wouldn’t they jump on this? Sure, Chrysler did it first, but all the manufacturers improving it and incorporating it with hydrogen, electric and possibly other technology will have a definite impact on our oil dependance, which is the ultimate goal…

p.s. Nick, shut your pie-hole about the handouts…you have not a clue.

Damion, sounds like you need some kind of implant there buddy to make up for your personal lacking..

Do the Lotus Elise or Exige ’suck’ w/ their 1.8l 4 cyl engines? I don’t think so. It’s not the size of the vehicle or engine, but the power/weight ratio. Yeah…

Go smaller (and more fun) cars!

whatever makes you feel better in the bed stanford, haha

No clue, right…. LOL!

Nick – first if you knew anything about farming, you would know that farmers tractors don’t run on E85… CAUSE THEY ARE DIESEL YOU MORON, gasoline engines aren’t fuel efficient enough and they don’t produce enough torque to pull heavy equipment. As far as the handouts go…my father and my grandfathers 3 generations back were all farmers…never, ever had a handout, I posted about this before. If you call back-breaking, 7 day a week, sunrise to sunset work for pennies on the dollar for the products they produce a handout, go ahead. I will agree that there are certain products that some produce that get subsidies, but that is the exception rather than the norm, ex. cranberry producers, dairy. but the work is no less hard or stressfull, dairy farmers probably put in more time and equipment and herd costs are much higher.

So unless you are a monk and have made a vow to quit eating…shut your mouth while it’s full.

…lol? What’s that you ignorant fool?

Nickivee- so sorry, I was referring to the post by Anonymous, but put Nick on by error, my mistake, please forgive! I was not referring to your post in any way, you were right on. No dis meant!

Holy Crap!!! Ok… I was like, damn why is this guy giving me crap!. Sorry for calling you an idiot.

nice!

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the reason why we are so dependent on international oil is because we haven’t built another refinery in this country for over thirty years, so production can never go over a certain point as we don’t have the capacity. Also, we have been hoarding oil for decades, preparing for the worst, in case we can’t get foreign oil. The ethanol solution is an unrealstic dream as it would take the entire USA 3 times over to produce enough ethanol to power all of our cars. Ethanol also requires more energy than it outputs so we’ll end up using more gasoline to power an ethanol car than if we just used that gas for the car. The all electric cars that you plug in present the same issue. Where do you think the electricity comes from? Power plants would end up using more coal and gas to meet demands of more electric plug-in cars on the road. Those two “solutions” are just gimmicks.

What needs to be done is to make cars lighter with smaller-displacing engines that come equiped with turbo or superchargers so it takes less gas to get a light car up to speed, and less throttle which also requires less gas than a car at full throttle. Anyone ever notice Saab’s tiny engines are all turbocharged and get great mileage? Their convertible gets 31 mpg.

We need to do this AND start making hydrogen a viable option as Hydrogen is the most plentiful substance in the universe, and engines would produced emissions of water! The flex-fuel engine that Ford dropped into their Super Chief concept is the most pragmatic solution as it allows for gas and hydrogen, (as well as E85). As more and more cars are outfitted with engines that can take hydrogen as well as the gas, more hydrogen propulsion research and filling stations will take place as there will be a growing interest and a growing market. Already, the Renesis engine used in the RX-8 can be easily modified to work on hydrogen. Those engines are also tiny (under 2 liters) and yet produce about 240 hp (with now turbo/superchargers). There also needs to be research on retrofitting (if possible) older engines to work with hydrogen. Then once such products exist, tax breaks must be given for having hydrogen cars.

I was doing a google for hydrogen and this page came up with an innaccurate posting that i had to come here and address. A posting by CTR says that tractors are diesel. That is a half accurate statement. New large tractors have diesel engines. However the first tractors ran on “tractor fuel” distallate which is similar to kerosene. Then tractors progressed to gasoline and also propane and diesel. Farmers had the option to buy the type of motor they wanted in most models. Gas burners were very common on smaller hp tractors however they went way in excess of 100 hp up to maybe about 1975 when diesel tended to start replacing all larger tractors. “they don’t produce enough torque to pull heavy equipment” Diesels may produce more torque in many designs but torque is developed by how an engine is designed both through displacement, bore, stroke and cam shaft charictoristics. Diesel has more BTU value than other fuels. So you can get more work from the same amount of fuel. In the 1970s during the first oil shortage, there was alot of interest in straight ethonal for tractors and autos in my area of Nebraska. Some people were making stills and burning straight alchohal in gas burning tractors. New high horse tractors of today are all diesel … but there are alot of older tractors that run gas and even propane. I should know, I own tractors from about 1930’s models clear up to the 1980′ s running distolate, gas, propane and diesel. I was doing some googleing for hydrogen powered farm tractors. A farmer back in Iowa made a ford gas burner run on hydrogen years ago that self generated as he went. An Alberta company had been working on that technology and supposedly used the farmers idea to make a unit that works, although I dont see a unit being produced for sale yet. I started farming back in the 70’s and when I saw the posting about fuel types used in farming I was compelled to post. I just wanted to clear up the misnomer that tractors can only be diesel powered. All new production US tractors with high hp output use diesels but the tractors roots are based on more than just diesel. cheers!!

It seems to me that we have an opportunity here to not only become independent from foreign oil while helping our own economy but we’re silly and stupid not to do as Brazil has done and utilize sugar instead of corn since it represents a responsible approach to protecting the environment. Ethanol made from corn is no better than gasoline for the environment. Care about life on Earth for your kids and their families? Global warming is undeniable to the sane. Brazil’s got the idea. Why can’t our highest levels of government do something good and right?

Just a little note about tractors and farming corn.
Tractors are diesel, so they cant run on E85. But they can run, and do run, on bio-diesel, instead of relying on fuel out of the US.